I think it’s exactly the opposite. People broadly overestimate the effect of social and political solutions while overlooking the impact of technological and economic changes. For example, why did gender roles suddenly change in the western world in the mid 20th century? Was it because people wrote books and passed laws? Or was it because the economy shifted from physically demanding agricultural and industrial work to a services and knowledge work economy? I’d argue that the typical course is for social change to follow technological and economic change.

Similarly, the the problem with representation of defendants in the legal system is technological and economic, not social. It’s expensive to have a credentialed person spend lots of time working on behalf of someone else. That’s true for everything from auto repair to law. The social and legal system is simply responding to that economic reality. The public is willing to spend so much money to protect the rights of the accused and there is only so much you can accomplish by haranguing them into wanting to spend more money. By contrast, if you dramatically reduce the cost of providing the accused with a defense, you dramatically change the landscape of the social and political issues.